The Mindset Behind Future-Ready Leadership

How Data, AI, and Inclusion Are Shaping Tomorrow’s Workplace 

In this #WorkplaceFutureReady edition of FinTech’s DEI Discussions, Nadia speaks with Julia Larsson, Lead Data Scientist at Aiviq, to explore what it really means to be a future-ready FinTech or asset management business. The conversation sits at the intersection of data, artificial intelligence, collaborative cultures, and inclusive leadership. For FinTech firms undergoing rapid transformation, and for organisations recruiting data, AI, and engineering talent, Julia’s insights offer a detailed picture of what a genuinely future-ready workforce requires.

Julia begins by grounding the discussion in Aiviq’s mission: enabling asset managers to become future-ready by transforming their client data into a single, trusted source of truth. She explains that the data asset managers rely on is vast and fragmented, often spread across multiple systems and sources. This includes assets under management and flow data, revenue data, account and agreement details, client structures, and product information across fund vehicles. Aiviq’s platform processes billions of global data points from more than 300 sources and consolidates them into a clean, connected, and reliable foundation. For organisations in financial technology, this type of data strategy allows them to automate previously manual work, accelerate decision-making, and make intelligent use of analytics and artificial intelligence.

For Julia, future readiness is a blend of technology, data, and human capability. Aiviq’s name underscores this philosophy, combining references to artificial intelligence and human intelligence. In her view, the future of work in FinTech depends on organisations that bring together advanced digital systems with the critical thinking, domain knowledge, creativity, and collaborative mindset of their teams. The biggest barrier to innovation is not ambition but complexity, and fragmented, unreliable data. Without addressing this barrier, companies risk being unable to adopt AI tools at scale or use them safely and effectively. By providing a trusted data foundation, Aiviq enables firms to move more confidently into the next stage of digital transformation.

Inclusion as the Cornerstone of Innovation in FinTech Teams

A core theme throughout the episode is Julia’s belief that inclusion is the basis of collaboration and innovation. Inclusion, in her words, is about creating a culture where every perspective has value. She stresses that the most impactful ideas come from people looking at the same challenge through completely different lenses. When a data scientist, product manager, and client-facing specialist all interpret a problem differently, the combination sparks original solutions that no single viewpoint could achieve alone.

Aiviq has operationalised this approach by building cross-functional collaboration into daily practice. The company runs open sprint reviews, interdisciplinary working groups, and mentoring sessions that connect graduates with senior leaders. These structures ensure that ideas can flow freely in every direction of the organisation, not just top-down. For Julia, environments like these enable people to speak up, challenge assumptions, and learn from each other without competitiveness. In her view, creativity thrives when people feel safe to contribute, and inclusion is what makes this possible.

This belief is especially relevant for FinTech recruitment. Organisations looking to hire data scientists, AI specialists, engineers, and product teams consistently report that collaboration and communication are essential skills. Julia’s perspective illustrates why: teams building advanced AI frameworks or data platforms will only succeed if they combine technical depth with varied viewpoints. For clients of Harrington Starr seeking to shape diverse and future-ready teams, this mindset is increasingly becoming a competitive advantage.

Hiring Builders, Not Followers: Why Mindset Drives Future-Ready FinTech Teams

One of the clearest insights from Julia is Aiviq’s philosophy that the company hires builders rather than followers. The FinTech and AI landscape evolves at extraordinary speed, with new tools emerging constantly and existing capabilities changing every week. Because of this, Julia explains that Aiviq is not looking for people who wait for instructions. Instead, they want individuals who are curious, adaptable, open-minded, and willing to tackle challenges they have never faced before. The ideal candidate is someone who sees an unfamiliar task and responds by wanting to figure it out independently.

This mindset is increasingly sought after across FinTech recruitment, especially for data and AI roles. Julia highlights that Aiviq looks for people who want to shape technology rather than just use it. Many employees join specifically to design new AI frameworks, build models that did not previously exist, or rethink how data governance should work within the asset and wealth management sector. By giving people ownership instead of instructions, Aiviq empowers them to create the foundations that others can build upon.

This approach is central to why the company continues to innovate. Individuals with a builder’s mindset thrive when given space, responsibility, and trust. When people feel ownership, they lean into creativity and challenge the status quo more naturally. As Julia explains, this is what keeps Aiviq ahead of the curve. For FinTech companies competing for top technology talent, this insight reinforces the importance of offering autonomy and creating roles that allow specialists to define, build, and test new ideas.

FinTech Innovation Through Diverse Skillsets and Global Collaboration

Julia discusses how diversity of skillsets enables teams to design capabilities that move beyond incremental improvement. Aiviq’s workforce includes people with deep technical backgrounds, such as PhDs in data science and AI, alongside individuals from product, business, consulting, and design disciplines. Each group brings its own way of thinking, which results in ideas being evaluated from every angle before they are developed. When organisations build teams like these, innovation feels original and forward-looking rather than reactive.

Aiviq’s teams are also multicultural, bringing together people from a wide range of nationalities and lived experiences. This further contributes to creativity, as different cultural perspectives introduce alternative ways of conceptualising problems. When these varied viewpoints converge, they produce results that go beyond simply following established industry trends. For Julia, the goal is not to chase the next big tool or capability but to define what that next capability should be. By joining data scientists with engineers, product managers, and client specialists from around the world, Aiviq ensures that every idea is thoroughly tested and strengthened before being executed.

In the context of FinTech recruitment, this reinforces the value of multidisciplinary hiring strategies. The best teams blend technical expertise with business understanding, design thinking, and client insight. FinTech organisations that want to attract the strongest talent need to demonstrate that they value cognitive and cultural diversity, and that they create opportunities for individuals from different backgrounds to collaborate productively.

Future-Ready Leadership: Blending Technical Fluency and Human Awareness

Nadia invites Julia to reflect on what the future of leadership looks like in a world where technology, AI, and data are reshaping every aspect of work. Julia explains that being future ready requires leaders to combine technical fluency with emotional intelligence. Leaders do not need to know how to code, but they must understand how data and AI influence their business model, their decision-making processes, and their organisational culture. Without this understanding, leaders risk falling behind in environments that move quickly.

At the same time, leaders need human awareness: the ability to listen deeply, remain curious, support their teams, and adapt with confidence as things change. With new tools, new expectations, and new methods of working emerging continually, effective leadership depends on connecting the dots between technology and people. The most impactful leaders are those who can bring the right individuals together at the right time, enabling them to create solutions collectively.

This is a timely message for FinTech firms building their senior leadership teams. Hiring leaders with this blend of technical and human capability is becoming essential. FinTech recruitment increasingly focuses on individuals who understand both data-driven decision-making and inclusive team management. Julia’s insights show that these qualities are no longer optional—they define whether a leader can effectively guide a future-ready organisation.

Upskilling for the AI Era: Building FinTech Workforces That Can Collaborate with Technology

The episode also explores what the next generation of skills development should look like for FinTech teams. Julia believes the industry has moved beyond simple AI awareness. The priority now is AI collaboration. Teams need to learn how to question data quality, interpret machine learning outputs, and use AI confidently in their daily work. This capability is not reserved for technical teams; it applies to individuals across the entire organisation.

Julia emphasises that upskilling is not only about adopting new tools but about creating learning cultures that feel dynamic, safe, and collaborative. Aiviq demonstrates this through more than 700 hours of project-based training delivered in a single year. Learning at Aiviq is embedded into the work itself, not treated as a separate activity. People learn by doing, testing, experimenting, and collaborating across different functions.

Breaking down silos is also central to this approach. Data scientists develop an appreciation of client needs and business context, while business analysts gain skills in querying data and understanding technical outputs. This mutual awareness helps build a more adaptable, future-proof workforce capable of working effectively with AI and across disciplines.

For FinTech recruitment, this reinforces that employers must offer meaningful training pathways and cross-functional exposure. Candidates in data, engineering, and product roles increasingly value organisations that invest in ongoing development and encourage collaborative curiosity. Julia’s examples illustrate the kinds of environments top talent is now seeking.

Embedding Inclusion Into Daily Operations Across FinTech and Financial Services

As the conversation comes full circle, Julia highlights that inclusion must not be viewed as an HR initiative. It needs to be present in everyday decision-making, team interactions, and organisational habits. Inclusion shows up in the questions asked during meetings, the people invited into discussions, and the effort made to listen to quieter voices. These small, consistent actions cumulatively shape a workplace culture where people feel valued and confident to contribute.

Julia shares that her personal approach to inclusion involves giving credit, sharing context, mentoring colleagues, and creating space for varied perspectives. At Aiviq, teams are encouraged to contribute ideas and challenge existing thinking, making inclusion a fundamental part of innovation. With AI and data increasingly influencing operations across financial technology, leaders have a responsibility to design systems that include rather than exclude. This applies not only to hiring practices but also to the solutions, products, and algorithms built within the industry.

For FinTech clients seeking to strengthen their technology, data, and AI functions, this is a critical insight. Teams that represent diverse viewpoints are better equipped to challenge assumptions and identify risks, leading to more reliable, fair, and forward-looking solutions. When inclusion becomes part of how organisations hire, it naturally becomes part of how they build, and this is where lasting change emerges.

Conclusion: Building the Future-Ready FinTech Workforce

This episode of FinTech’s DEI Discussions paints a comprehensive picture of what it means to be a future-ready organisation. Through Julia Larsson’s insights, it becomes clear that the future of work in FinTech will be shaped by reliable data foundations, advanced AI, empowered teams, inclusive cultures, multidisciplinary skillsets, forward-thinking leadership, and continuous learning. The firms that succeed will be those that embrace both human intelligence and artificial intelligence, supported by teams that feel ownership, autonomy, and a sense of purpose.

For companies across the FinTech ecosystem, and for those working with Harrington Starr to recruit data, AI, product, and engineering talent, Julia’s views provide practical guidance. Future readiness is not a destination but a mindset. It is built through daily behaviours, learning cultures, and inclusive collaboration. The organisations that invest in people and data simultaneously will be the ones defining, rather than following, the trends that shape financial technology.